Community social care services (such as supported living and Shared Lives) were rated the best overall compared to other services. Smaller services were rated better than larger services.

We believe that giving people with learning disabilities real control over their lives through different types of supported living is right. More and more people with learning disabilities are living in their own homes, with housemates, as part of a network and in shared lives. We also know that just because something is called supported living, it does not automatically make it good quality. We are really happy to see such good ratings for community services and feel proud of our members who work really hard to achieve them.

Let’s go for 100% good and outstanding next time!

Why so few outstanding services?

2% of services, less than expected, rated as outstanding. We want to celebrate the 2% – we know some of our members that have achieved an outstanding rating. But why so few? Some of our members tell us that it is down to individual perspectives from inspectors and they have seen services being given an outstanding rating that are not as good as other services that have a good rating. Some say fewer resources impact on the extra things they do to deliver outstanding support. We want to focus on what outstanding really means and help our members to achieve it. We are interested in your thoughts on this.

Specialist learning disability services were rated higher than other services

92% of community services that specialise in supporting people with learning disabilities were rated good or outstanding. The caring and responsive key questions were particularly strong for learning disability services, showing that providers are organising their services to meet people’s needs, and staff are involving people in their care and treating them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

But there are still too many specialist learning disability services that do not meet minimum standards:

8% of community services

9% of domiciliary care services

11% of residential care services

15% of nursing care services.

There is still much work to do to bring all of adult social care for people with learning disabilities up to basic standards.

We know from what our members say that leadership, culture and person centred care are the backbone of brilliant care and support.

Being ‘well-led’ is very important. If a service is rated as good or outstanding in the ‘well-led’ question, it is more likely to be rated as good or outstanding overall, compared with the other main questions. Assessment of whether services are well-led shows poor performance, with 22% of services rated as requires improvement and 2% as inadequate.

Driving Up Quality

Driving Up Quality, a robust process of self assessment, has enabled CQC inspectors to get a better picture of how well-led providers are. If you haven’t already, take a look at how other providers have assessed their own culture and leadership through Driving Up Quality.